


One (is the loneliest)

by Crab_Lad



Category: Justice League: Doom
Genre: (mention) - Freeform, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blood and Injury, Buried Alive, Gen, Introspection, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27908377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crab_Lad/pseuds/Crab_Lad
Summary: Set after: Justice League: Doom dealing with the fallout
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	One (is the loneliest)

**Author's Note:**

> okay i watched the movie and got emo: here

Bruce wakes with a start, the taste of dirt, blood and death still on his tongue. He can still smell the rotting flesh, see the hollow eyes of his mother’s skeleton. His hands ache with phantom pain, joints stiff as he flexes them. Almost instantly, his eyes trail to the side table where a simple white box sits. It’s crumpled from time, the contents long put away in a safe vault. 

With a sigh, he lays back down. 

He doesn’t get much sleep the rest of the night. 

* * *

“Rough night?” Alfred inquires when Bruce finally drags himself down to the dining room. Tim isn’t there, which is a good sign. The boy is too smart for his own good, Bruce is too proud to say that Tim is _smarter_ than himself. 

“The usual,” Bruce grunts in response, but he accepts the coffee Alfred hands him anyway. 

There’s silence in the long hall for a moment, pressing and weighing on Bruce in a way it hasn’t before. No, the silence has always been welcoming but it’s suffocating, reminding him of that dark hole in the ground. 

He places down his mug, “I don’t get it.” 

“I don’t believe there is anything to ‘get’, sir,” Alfred chides, “if we understood the brain, then I fear humanity would be far too powerful.” 

Bruce doesn’t respond, instead he sips from his mug and carries on.

* * *

Despite his resignation, he doesn’t stop funding the League. The thought to stop had crossed his mind, but he couldn’t. It would be immensely petty, a childish mood from the unwavering Batman. Yet he doesn’t hear from any of the others, even if he keeps tabs. Cyborg, Victor, has more than proven himself as a member, and Bruce- 

Bruce ignores the gaping loneliness that has long since become a friend.

* * *

Tim doesn’t ask when he notices. And Bruce knows that Tim notices. Out of all of them, Tim really seems to understand him the most. Dick always pushed against Bruce, and Jason was always too caught up in his own issues to stop and recognize Bruce’s own limits. Tim though, Tim understands.

Tim nods at him as Bruce storms into the cave, doesn’t ask as Bruce slumps into his chair and struggles to contain his breathing. Instead, Tim walks over, takes his file and leaves the cave. Bruce struggles, trying so hard to ignore the burning in his lungs from the gas, from the lack of oxygen, to ignore the images of a bloodied fist pounding into the silk and wood of a casket. 

It’s fine. 

* * *

Hal Jordan, surprisingly, is the first one to reach out. It’s a quiet night in Gotham, something rare yet precious. The Bat knows not to underestimate the silence, but he still takes advantage of it, perched on the gargoyle above the GCDP. The Lantern’s presence is only signified by the dull green glow behind him. 

“Lantern,” he grumbles, not bothering to turn. 

He doesn’t expect the hand that landed on his shoulder, but he couldn’t stop himself from soaking in the thin warmth that seeps through. 

  
“Heya, Spooky, long time no see. Got a minute? I could use some help.” 

Bruce can’t find it in him to say no. 

It’s a small feat, but Jordan is beyond nice the whole time. Bruce leaves it feeling lighter than he has in days.

* * *

_Clark, dead on the ground, Bruce not fast enough to help. J’onn, burning at the bottom of the ocean, screaming inhumanly as it seeps deep into his soul. Diana, running herself raggad until she dies, heart beating too fast for even her body to handle. Barry, slowing because he doesn’t have the energy, tripping and eyes closed as his body is torn apart. Bruce, buried, breathing until the air is thin knowing that Tim, Alfred, Dick, Jason- they’re alone and he’s gone._

Bruce wakes instantly, kicking and punching for something that isn’t there. His hands are bloodied, nails shredded. He doesn’t have to look at the headboard to know that there’s damage there. Numbly he gets up, heads to where he keeps the first aid in the bathroom. When it’s done, he has barely any time to make it to the toilet before he throws up last night's dinner. 

* * *

He holds the box in the morning, watching the sun turn it blinding. It’s a simple contraption of cardboard and paper, painted a simple white. In light, it's the combination of all colors, everything the human brain can comprehend. It’s anger, it’s hope, it’s will, it’s passion, it’s so many things combined. 

The significance of the moment hadn’t escaped Bruce. It had seemed like forgiveness, an apology, hope for the future and more. Yet it had felt like a goodbye, when Clark hadn’t yet spoken to him since. But that small sentimental part of him couldn’t help but hold onto it, to remember the moment. 

Quietly, he slides it back into his bedside table’s drawer and leaves the room.

* * *

Hal talks to him, updates him on the League as if Bruce cares. He does, not that he’ll admit it to Jordan. Yet he doesn’t ask Hal to stop, not even as the loneliness digs deeper, burrowing deep into his soul. He’s cold these days, cold and hardened. Nothing he tries gets him warm, nothing gets rid of the emptiness. 

Tim starts to pry but Bruce shuts him out. The kid isn’t his son, not really. The kid has a father, a mother, a home. He’s Robin, but Bruce doesn’t mean the same thing to Time that Bruce meant to Dick and Jason. Tim doesn’t have the right to Bruce’s psychosis. Alfred gives him pointed looks, but Bruce ignores them. 

He doesn't want anyone's pity. Bruce started this alone, knew it would end with him alone. It wasn't a depressing thought that it had used to be, yet it was even more deeply cutting.

While he may have lost some of his only friends, the most intimate friend of all was that gaping loneliness in his chest. It welcomes him back with open arms. 

* * *

Next thing he recognizes, is the sharp pain of flesh being sliced open by his own projectile. Catwoman, _Selena_ , glares with a vicious smirk, claws scratching at his kevlar. It pierces it, digging into the muscle of his stomach. There’s another at his throat. The projectile, _the batarang as Dick had called it once, jokingly, yet the name had stuck until Dick left,_ is lodged in his chest, buried in his left lung. The breath is sucked out of him as Selena lands a punch to his throat, tripping him with her leg. 

He’s free falling, wind whistling in his ears, billowing his cape around him. He can’t turn, can’t catch his breath as he struggles to keep the images of a rotted corpse, a black silk coffin out of his mind. The wind is roaring, deafening as the windows rush past. His sight goes black as two arms, lit by green, surround him. 

* * *

It’s not Jordan he wakes up to, no. Of all the people he expected, he hadn’t expected to see Clark on his bedside, humming under his breath as he types on his laptop. There’s a strange dissonance there, to see him without his glasses, yet without the suit. He looks straight out of a postcard for Kansas, complete with the plaid rolled up sleeves and torn jeans. 

Clark notices the second he wakes up, Bruce can tell from the tensing of his shoulders. But he doesn’t let it show elsewhere, doesn’t pause in his typing. Bruce takes the moment to study him, to see the clenched jaw and the clouded eyes. Eyes that flicker to his nightstand, to the drawer where the box lays. 

“You kept it,” Clark says, tone even. 

“Yeah,” Bruce croaks, “yeah.” 

“The bullet?”

“Safe.” 

* * *

Clark stays for two days. They don't speak much, not unless Clark initiates it. But even then, Bruce keeps his responses curt and annoyed. He pushes Clark away in every way he can, yet the man is persistent. The Kryptonian eventually leaves, sighing in an exasperated breath as he places something white on the nightstand. 

He leaves without a word, passing Alfred with a smile on his way out. Bruce ignores him, waits till he can hear the boom outside signifying his exit before looking at the card. It’s nothing special, a simple white background with a messily scrawled message in black letters. 

_Come back, please?_

“Ah, yes,” Alfred tuts, snatching the card from his hand, “after you have healed, Master Bruce. Until then the doctor has ordered a break from work.” 

Bruce grumbles, “And what doctor is that?”

“Me, sir.” 

* * *

He heals slowly. Dick stays most of the time, Tim even stays for a few days for the first time. The room he occasionally used gets turned into something more permanent, lined with personal clean sheets, and posters that Tim himself puts up. It’s… it’s something, and Bruce feels himself warming at the sight of Dick and Tim arguing over what to have for dinner over his sickbed. 

Tim wins from sheer manipulation of words, and Bruce watches as Dick ruffles the kid’s hair. It’s so- so famillial. Bruce thinks he may need to rethink his and Tim’s relationship, especially as the kid gazes at him, concern and fondness clear in his eyes. 

* * *

A month passes before Alfred clears him, and for the first time in a year, Bruce steps foot on the Watchtower.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is crablad


End file.
